My Love Letter to Sourdough

Dear Sourdough,

Thank you for being so soothing. I don't know what it is about you. I think it might be a little bit how mysterious you are... the fact that I caught your yeast in my living room... such an odd science-project gone right!

Maybe you soothe me because you are so unlike the rest of my life. You are slow. You are unpredictable. You are hearty.

You are so forgiving. You aren't fussy or demanding that I follow specific instructions about how much flour or water I add to you. And in dough form, while rising, you don't seem to mind that I sometimes forget about you. You always turn out pretty much the same!

Maybe it's because you are essentially for me. No one else in this family loves you like I do. They tolerate you. But I adore you. I love how you smell when I'm kneading you. I love how you feel... how you transform beneath my fingers from a sticky glob to a soft squishy ball of dough. I love how you puff up while you rise on the shelf over my heater. I love how you smell while you're baking. I love how you taste.

I think you are magnificent!

There is something about you, dear Sourdough, that I just can't do without.

You are steadfast. I can't believe you have survived so many seasons of neglect on my part! I thought I had surely killed you numerous times... but here you are, two years later, still bubbly and tangy and always at the ready when I get a hankering for fresh homemade bread.

I live in Germany, the land of great bread. They practically give away the stuff. It's so cheap and yummy and convenient. But I still need you sometimes.

You soothe me. You nourish me. You remind me to slow down. I love that about you!

So thanks again Sourdough. Thanks.

Love,
Jessica

Giveaway | Nourish Your Skin with Natural Products from Raisin' Acres Farm

I'm so excited today!

I am absolutely in love with this company and I get to share some of their goodies with you!

Dry-skin season is upon us! Lily's eczema is already flaring up. And with all I have on my plate right now, making natural lotions and potions for her is pretty low on the priority list.

Outsourcing to the rescue! 

Sherri Stickler of Raisin' Acres Farm makes these fabulous soaps, lotions, and balms out of goats' milk and all natural/organic ingredients.

You can find their website here.

On top of these fabulous products that you can feel good about putting on your skin (and the skin of your loved ones) she also blogs about her wealth of knowledge.

You have to check her out! Raisin' Acres Farm Blog

This woman is boss on all things crunchy. Reading her blog is like pulling up a chair in her kitchen and grilling her with questions about natural remedies, gardening, essential oils, fermenting, immune support, and cooking... while you sip a cup of warm chai and get a good laugh, too!

Raisin' Acres Farm sent me some samples and she also donated THREE sets of goodies that I get to pass on to you, my faithful readers!

My favorite product so far is the soap. We wash our hands so often (or, rather, I try to encourage us to wash our hands so often) that it really drys out the skin in winter.

This goat milk soap is so gentle and soft! 

The scents are fantastic... my favorite is the lavender/patchouli.

I also really like the rose cream, which I use all over for Lily. And I've been using the Momma's Medicine on her especially dry patches, with great results.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So here's the giveaway! Use rafflecoptor to either "like" the donor's page, my page, follow me on twitter, or tweet a message about the giveaway! 

It's that easy!

At the end of the giveaway I'll select three winners to be the lucky recipients of NOT ONLY a goody box of one of the Raisin' Acres Farm bundles, but ALSO a few Happy Hippos from Germany... they are pretty much the best little candy ever! You will die and go to Nutella Heaven. (Unless you have a nut allergy... then please. Don't consume!)

But seriously, enter to win! Enter multiple times! Tell your friends to enter!

Let's support Raisin' Acres Farm AND keep our skin soft and paraben-free this winter!

Recipe | Getting LITERALLY Crunchy with Soaked Granola

I've been making homemade granola at least once a week since the girls started school. In fact, I'm making some right now! As I was doing it recently without even really thinking of the measurements, I decided it was high time to share this easy recipe.

When people think of someone like me, they might call them "a hippie" or "crunchy" or "a granola"... I happen to fancy the term hippie, as in the "I cloth diapered my kids and make a lot of my food from scratch and try to avoid chemicals in our personal products"... not hippie as in "I did weird things in the 60s that damaged my brain." ;o)

So in the spirit of being a hippie and pretty crunchy and loving granola, here's my granola recipe!

My little monkeys have been eating plain, whole yogurt and homemade granola for a long time. Both these photos are from around a year old. It's still one of their most frequently requested food... just plain yogurt, homemade granola, and some fruit. So simple and nutritious!

Jesse used to call Sam "Santy-Claus" while she was eating because of how messy she'd get! Yogurt is one of our main sources of dairy, and they eat in on an almost daily basis.


Jessica's Five Grain Soaked Granola
(Based off of Katie Kimball's recipe in Healthy Snacks To Go)

3 cups muesli or oatmeal
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon plain yogurt, lemon juice, or vinegar
1 cup water
6 tablespoons melted coconut oil or butter
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup maple syrup or honey
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla 

Soak muesli and flour overnight in yogurt-water mixture. In the morning, preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until combined. Smooth the granola "batter" out into a thin layer on a baking stone or parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 1 and 1/2 hours, then flip over. Continue for another 1 and 1/2 hours and turn off the oven and leave overnight (or for a few more hours) for it to dry out completely.

The only problem I ever have with this recipe is making sure that I'm not taking up the oven on a night I need the oven for dinner. Otherwise, it's pretty mindless and easy. 

First step is to measure out your muesli into a bowl with a lid. I like Bob's Red Mill but it's also the only brand available to me at the Commissary so, my preferences don't really matter in that case. I like to do this step the night before I plan to bake the granola. 

I love using muesli in this recipe because it's got such diversity - when else are my kids going to be eating barley and rye? 

Then you mix in your flour and yogurt. And one cup of warm water. 

The yogurt (or any acidic liquid) helps the phytic acids and gluten in the grains to start to break down. Basically, it's pre-digestion of your food, to help make the nutrients more available for your body. This is a similar process to soaking sourdough bread overnight. Or lacto-fermenting veggies.

Conventional wisdom says it's kooky to leave dairy out on the counter overnight but hippies love this kind of stuff. "Uh oh, Mom's breeding enzymes again." (<-- I'm sure my kids will say it someday!)

But anyways, you leave it out on the counter to soak overnight.

In the morning, you preheat the oven (for half an hour if you're using a baking stone like me) and gather the rest of the ingredients. Butter works great but I try to get coconut oil into our systems as much as I can.

Maple syrup or honey. I think maple syrup has better flavor but it's a little more expensive. 

Unsweetened coconut. Fun fact: when you accidentally buy shaved coconut instead of shredded, the first time you use it, your husband does a double take, thinking you've put onions in the granola! 

Let's pause for a second to consider that he wouldn't put that past me. 

Once you have everything in there (cinnamon and vanilla included), you plop it out onto your baking mat or parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.

Spread it out as thin as you can, about 1/4 if possible.

And transfer it to the hot baking stone. (Or put the pan or cookie sheet in the oven) 

After about an hour and a half, you're going to flip it over little by little so the other side can crisp up.

Pop it back into the oven for another hour and a half, then turn the oven off and leave it in there... for a few hours or overnight. (I always opt for overnight. There's less thinking involved and I don't have to put it in a jar till morning!) 

In the morning it looks like this and it's ready to eat! One thing I love about this recipe is that the granola kind of gets clumpy and stuck together. I like that kind of texture much better than loose oats.

Here is my method of transporting yogurt parfaits to school and work without spills... recycled screw top glass jars! (ours are always our peanut butter jars) Free AND spill proof! 

And oh look! Here's what happens when Mommy forgets it's a German holiday and sends the kids to school with Daddy on the way to work... they end up right back home ten minutes later, eating their portable breakfast at the kitchen counter while I make my coffee :o)

So that's our current granola recipe. I've been in love with it for over a year! Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

Homemade Sauerkraut | Ferment Your Cabbage TODAY!

Photo credit for this post to Kirsten Ashley Photography, edits by yours truly

I'm really excited for today's post.  Of all the lacto-fermented vegetables I've tried, sauerkraut is my favorite.  It's the easiest, yummiest, and most familiar way to give fermentation a try.

Need a reminder of what this hippie-trend of lacto-fermentation is all about?  In short, fermenting your veggies makes them more digestible for your body.  Fermenting increases the vitamin level of your veggies.  Eating a fermented veggie, fruit, or dairy each day gives your gut a natural, healthy boost of good bacteria.  

A longer definition:  "Lactic acid is a natural preservative that inhibits putrefying bacteria.  Starches and sugars in vegetables and fruits are converted into lactic acid by the many species of lactic-acid-producing bacteria... These beneficial organisms produce numerous helpful enzymes as well as antibiotic and anti-carcinogenic substances."  (Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions )

So as you can see, consuming some form of lactic acid-y food each day will give your immune system a great boost.  So this tutorial is perfect to try this time of year - natural illness prevention before winter!

Homemade sauerkraut is easy and fun to make, especially if you invite friends to join you for the morning!  Kirsten and Shawna came over to help chop, photograph, and chitchat during my last big batch.  

And now I wanted to share it with you because cabbage is in season!

So go grab some and give this a try!

So step 1 is to chop-chop-chop-shred-shred.  In lieu of fancy equipment, I just use a chef's knife.  Cut the cabbage as thinly as possible... remove the yucky outer leaves.

As you layer the cabbage into your giant bowl, you add salt and whey.  I use Himalayan salt in pretty much all our cooking.  You can check out this article about why unprocessed salt is actually good for you.  

And check out this very old blog post about how to make your whey for this recipe.  It's super easy, all you need is plain yogurt and a little bit of time.

Once you have all your cabbage chopped, it's time to beat the shenanigans out of it.  This is a fantastic activity for a busy and stressful week, to release some tension... though not a great activity if your children are napping ;o)

You want to spend about ten minutes pounding the cabbage to help it release as much juice as possible.  The salt will have already helped jump-start this process.

Then you add your caraway seeds.  You can add them earlier, too, but sometimes I forget or sometimes I just want to be a free spirit.  Thankfully, lacto-fermentation is a relatively forgiving process.

Next, using clean hands, you start stuffing the cabbage into wide-mouth mason jars.  (bonus points if said hands include finger nails that are color-coordinated with your coffee mug)

You can actually use any kind of glass jar that has a tight-fitting lid.  Sometimes I use smaller jars.  Whatever you have available.

Now you press it as firmly as possible into the jar.  You have to find some utensil that let's you push it down tight... I have a tiny metal ladle that works great.

Keep layering and pressing until the cabbage comes to about an inch and a half below the top of the jar.  You could leave two inches to be safe.  Remember, sometimes lacto-fermentation projects can go wrong if you don't leave enough room for the expansion of gases.  But we're not talking about highly pressurized liquids here, so don't be too scared. Just leave a little room at the top.

There should be liquid completely covering the cabbage.  If not, mix up a little bit of a salt water brine to add to each jar.  1 tablespoon of salt to 1 cup of water should do the trick. 

Ta-da!  Homemade sauerkraut!   Okay, technically, it won't be sauerkraut for a little while.  Now you put the lids on those bad boys (tightly!) and you let them sit at room temperature for about 3 days.  This allows the good bacteria to get to work.  Then you transfer them to cold storage.  You can use the refrigerator if you have the space, but I have also successfully stored them unopened in my basement.  Once open, you should definitely store the jar in the fridge.  

The sauerkraut can be eaten right away after that three day wait, but it improves with age.  Interestingly, it's traditionally "ready" after SIX MONTHS of fermenting!  I have found that it's even better longer than that.  My favorite batch was a year old.

What I like to do is make some about every six months and put the date on it before putting it in the basement.  That way I always have some to eat while the rest is aging.

So what do we do with all this sauerkraut?  Our favorite simple meal with it is to cook up sausages and potatoes in a skillet and top it with a generous portion of sauerkraut.  

I also love it on top of this white bean soup.

I like it on sandwiches with all the fixin's.

The other day I made open-faced breakfast sandwiches with sauerkraut, cheese, and a fried egg.

The possibilities are endless...
   Pan-grilled sausages with sauerkraut
   Sweet and sour brats
   Grilled reuben sandwiches

So there you have it!  Here's the recipe.  A Jessica-hybrid from Nourishing Traditions and Wild Fermentation

Keep in mind that I usually do a huge batch (at least triple) and I almost never truly measure it out.  I hate math ;o)  So don't fret if your measurements aren't exact... like I said, it's forgiving.

Homemade Sauerkraut

equipment:  sharp chef's knife, cutting board, large bowl or bucket, glass jars with tight fitting lids, meat pounder, spoon or small ladle.

ingredients:  
   1 medium cabbage, cored and shredded
   1 tablespoon caraway seeds
   1 tablespoon sea salt
   4 tablespoons whey
   salt water brine, as needed (1 T salt dissolved in 1 C water)

instructions:
In the bowl, mix the cabbage, caraway seeds, sea salt, and whey.  pound with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer for about 10 minutes to release the juices.  Place in a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar and press down firmly until juices come to top of cabbage.  If more juice is required, add salt water brine.  The top of the cabbage should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar.  Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage.  The sauerkraut may be eaten immediately, but it improves with age.


Happy fermenting!